The Uncontrolled Growth of Pit

Gareth ripped his hand away from the sharp pain that cut across his palm. The instinctive reaction likely saved his fingers from his own stupidity. He dropped the pair of pruning shears to the ground and pulled off the thick gardening gloves, sending a splash of his own blood to paint red across the fruit tree’s blossoms like some twisted version of Alice in Wonderland’s roses. He let out a relieved sigh to see only a minor slice to his palm and shook his hand out in an effort to dispel the throbbing, which only served to further splatter the plant. 

“That’s the end of the days landscaping efforts” he decided with a sigh.

He retreated into the old house, running his bloodied palm under the tap to clean the wound and awkwardly juggled the first aid kit open with his good hand. He didn’t really know why he bothered trying to keep from staining the floor or cupboards, it was all going to have to be ripped out anyway. His late mother had not thought to maintain the place in her final years, the same fixtures that he remembered shining like new through his childhood, now stood aged and decrepit. 

Once bandaged up as neatly as is possible for someone alone, he grabbed himself a glass of water and forced himself still, stopping to take a deep breath. He chastised himself for the stupid mistake that was going to cost him valuable time. He despaired at how much was left to do with a shake of his head; both house and garden needed a complete overhaul to get ready to sell. Now he had to do it all without the use of his left hand, at least until it healed. He sighed and rolled his neck, not knowing how he could possibly manage it all. His mothers passing had saddened him sure, but their relationship had never been a close one and so any true grief was hard to come by. As an only child with no father he had ever cared to know, the sheer amount of work she had left him to deal with on her behalf had eclipsed any sympathy he might have once had. He might say that she was cold, harsh and resistant to any kind of affection. He could lay all the fault at her feet for their dwindling contact, but the truth was he had inherited plenty of those traits himself, which only added to the rift between them. The fact she had been unwell for so many months and he had not even known had been as much his fault for never thinking to pick up the phone as it was hers for not reaching out. He had to admit, there were good reasons he had no one to turn to for help with the monumental task that was his mothers old property. He seemed to push people away not matter how much he desired the opposite.

Long, exhausting days continued to pass and Gareth whittled away at clearing his mothers possessions, tearing down old wallpaper and cleaning ancient stains. He slept in his childhood bedroom, curled up on his old single bed with sheets that barely kept the warmth in. Even in his middle age, he felt guilty entering her bedroom without permission, let alone sleeping in there. The ghost of her wrath; memories triggered of times she discovered him exploring the forbidden room were enough to forgo the added comfort it might have held. 

He did his best to make the most of the daylight hours, hacking back at the encroaching garden and clearing it to some semblance of its former glory. The twinge in his hand every time his wound reopened with the movement made it all so much harder. He watched the days tick past, his leave of absence from work growing longer and more unbearable. The company had been understanding and allowed him all the time he needed, but every day on leave was a day he wasn’t earning commission or developing leads. He didn’t want to get left behind for the sake of dealing with some old thorn bushes. Justification crept into his thoughts that the increased sale price on the old place would be worth the work and the time away. But only barely. In truth his job was the only place he had regular contact with other people and without it he was beginning to feel even more isolated than usual.

The day came when he eventually returned to his tree trimming. Scooping up the shears that had laid in the dirt where he left them, he noticed that the gnarled old trunk he had abandoned was beginning to fruit. There were enough familiar trees dotted around the place to form a mini orchard, all of them he remembered growing sick of as a child when the glut of fruit had never been allowed to go to waste. He still couldn’t even look at a green gauge plum without wanting to wretch. This particular variety though, he could never recall producing anything of note. He didn’t recognise the single, bulbous red globe emerging from where the blossoms had once been as anything he had ever seen before. Perhaps it was another kind of large unnamed plum. It peaked his interest enough that he decided to leave it to mature, thinking he could investigate once it was fully grown and moved on to the rest of the garden.

Over a week later Gareth dumped himself down onto his little bed. Along with an old couch and a few side tables, it was one of the only remaining piece of furniture in the whole house. He had been living out of a bag for what felt like forever but was finally, almost done, a few more days and the real estate folks would be swarming the place to take pictures and put up signs. With nothing other than his thoughts for entertainment, he decided to walk through the now clear and crisp garden, taking in the warm evening and revelling in all his hard work. It almost looked like he remembered it. With all the weeds and overgrown branches removed, he could recognise every crack in the path and hidden nook, so often explored in his solitary young play. He wandered on and came upon the red fruiting tree, noticing its produce had already grown as large as his fist. The rate of growth was astounding, perhaps due to there being only one on the whole plant. He cupped the lone bauble, feeling its soft texture give a little under his grip and to his dismay, the whole thing popped from the branch under the slightest of touches. Shrugging and hoping it was ready to eat, he split it open with his hands right there and then. He had an insatiable urge to know what the strange plum was. Under the fuzzy red outer layer he found pink, juicy flesh and as he dug deeper, uncovered a large wooden pit. He licked the juice from his thumb and winced. It tasted metallic, like…blood. Checking beneath his bandage under the assumption he had opened the healing wound on his hand again, he found it sealed, closed under he scab that had begun to form. Confused, he looked back to the fruit, only to find a pair of sleepy eyes staring back up at him. The pit, now open to the air through the chasm he had rent in the fruit, was curiously examining him from within its enclosure. With a yelp he dropped the entire thing to the ground and ran toward the house, attempting to shake his wits back into his head as he went. 

He ran to the kitchen, ran his hands under the cold water and splashed his face. Clearing all of the fruit remnants away and bringing himself back to reality. Then he planted his hands either side of the sink, drips running down his face and stared out the window at the freakish blob he had left in the grass. It remained still for a long while, as did he, waiting to make sure that what he had seen wasn’t real. Just as he released the tension in his shoulders and let out a sigh of relief, he saw two little wooden arms reach up and out of the plum. They pushed away the two halves of the fruit, only having a small hinge to break after Gareth’s efforts had done most of the work. Two little legs rose and the strange creature grasped at its own toes. Wiggling tiny fingers and exploring itself, it giggled. Then it immediately switched to what could only be called crying, sending out yells of anguish that sounded like demands. Gareth paced the kitchen, sure he had spent far too long alone in the old house. Perhaps there was hidden mould and it had got to him, what if the fruit juice he had tasted were poisonous and he was hallucinating? It had to be something like that. Regardless of the reason, he was seeing something that could not be, he just needed to ignore it until it passed. The wailing of the thing began to grate against his nerves after only a few minutes. He tried clamping his hands over his ears, burying his head in a pillow and putting his mind elsewhere, but eventually, he broke. He could not take another minute of the sobbing and screaming, so he burst from the back door in a fit of rage. He strode straight up to the thing, intending to stomp it quiet for good. That was until he saw the creatures tiny arms reach up to him, its hands opening and closing and its screams softening to gurgles. Its eyes locked with his and all he saw was helplessness, pleading for him to take care of it, to keep it safe. He scooped it up into his arms and took it inside.

He looked back at that moment often and attributed his decision to pure shock induced madness. What had possessed him to take ownership of the creature, born of fruit and made of wood, he could not say. All he knew was that the singular moment had changed his life forever.

Those first days were hard, figuring out what it ate took far too long and pushed his patience to the limit. In the end a chance encounter with an invading moth lit the way and a steady diet of insects had fed it ever since. It grew quickly and before long was running around the garden under its own legs, exploring everything the world had to offer and hunting down bugs for itself. The sale of the house was long forgotten after a few phone calls with bemused office staff, his job on hold indefinitely and his life became centred on this creature and nothing else. It’s little smiles and strangely warm cuddles at night had entranced him. Nothing else seemed to matter any more other than caring for this small, innocent and vulnerable thing. Unsure of its gender, he name it simply Pit and kept it wholly secret, for he knew that he would not be permitted to keep it should its presence become known by any authority. He felt a connection to this creature, as if it had been born of his shed blood and was hence a part of him. He wondered if this was how true parents felt, bonded to someone so completely that no matter what happened, he would hold fast in loving support and protection.

Watching Pit play in the garden where he spent his own childhood resurfaced memories of Gareth’s time with his mother. They took on a different light, now that he was playing her role to another. Where once he had resented her not joining him in sun doused play, he now understood why she preferred to stand in the window of the kitchen, watching him. It had meant she could actually get some dishes done without him around her feet and she could indulge in a break from his incessant noise. The yells he deemed unreasonable when he had broken his third window with a ball, now seemed completely justified. The time and money it took to fix accidents were no different than if it had been done intentionally. Even the exasperation that painted her face, when he had only wanted to stay up a little later now resonated clearly in his own reactions. All she had wanted was a quiet few hours to herself. 

Caring for Pit had awakened him to the fact that despite her faults, his mother had truly loved him, to give so much of herself to see him succeed. He realised that perhaps the distance between them had been a product of his own resentment. The blame should not have been shouldered by her at all, but she had lifted the entire burden regardless. The first time this thought occurred to him, he had to reassure Pit that he was unharmed and that the tears streaming down his face were not ones of any physical pain, only regret.

Pit continued to grow quickly. He swelled in size to stand above Gareth’s knee over the space of only a month and with the rapid change in build came a voracious appetite. Soon the expansive garden could not provide the level of insect life needed to sustain Pit and so not knowing what else to do to satisfy his hunger, he began giving him red meat. Sausages, steak, bacon and anything else that had once bled. Gareth would bring home a huge supply from the store and Pit would devour it all. He seemed to be of an equal age to a toddler and so Gareth also began experimenting with teaching him to speak and attempting some rudimentary education in shapes and numbers. It all fell on deaf ears as the wooden creature continued to communicate only in gestures and grunts. The only interests that could truly hold its attention were food and play. Gareth began to wonder just what he had thrown himself into and questioned himself daily if he was doing the right thing by Pit. Perhaps he would be better off with people smarter and more equipped to care for such a being, but despite the logic behind the argument, he could not bring himself to take any action that would lead to them parting.

There came a day that Gareth should have seen coming. A day when mother nature revealed her true face in more ways than one. A storm had swept in and made passage to the local store impossible. Roads were underwater and the winds were so high that he was beginning to worry if his mothers old house would bear the brunt of the weather. Pit was hungry. He was not dealing with the delay well. He stomped around the house making his tantrum known, even above the sound of the thunder that crashed through the sky. Gareth was doing his best to soothe the youngster, who was now standing as tall as his waist, but no amount of sweet talk could seem to convince him to wait for a meal. Inevitably, Gareth lashed out, losing his temper and grabbing toward the frustrating creature. His intent was to knock some sense into the rampaging child, to shock him into compliance. He had forgotten though that Pit was made of raw wood and so by doing so, only damaged his own hand. The graze on his palm scratched against the healing wound that had brought Pit into his life, bubbling slow dots of blood to the surface. Pit calmed immediately. Gareth though the sight of his blood might have had the intended impact, surprising him enough that he would realise the impact that his anger was having. Instead, he watched the love drain from his adopted sons eyes, to be replaced with a glazed lust.

Gareth burst from the back door into the storm, striving to reach the axe he knew lay in the wood shed. Not daring to look back at the creature he loved so completely, yet hunted him like its prey. He passed the spot where he had resisted stomping on pits newborn body and wondered if he had made a mistake that day. He shook off the thought and renewed his determination to reach the weapon. All he knew was that if he could not find a way to control his offspring in this state, he would likely never get another chance to correct the behaviour. Discipline had never been his strong suit and he could admit he had indulged the child. His ways had been so alien that he hadn’t even considered that he had been cultivating a brat by never setting a limit on his diet. A good knock with an axe should set him straight. He had wished a father in his own life on so many occasions to have corrected his course, now he had the chance to do so for Pit in the only way he could think might actually get through to him. Despite the heavy armoured shell of his body.

He reached the woodshed, slung open the door, grabbed the axe handle and swung. It connected just as Pit reached for him. A soul wrenching crack echoed out into the storm and Pit fell backward onto the ground. A spike of fear ran through Gareth, had he seriously hurt the creature? He looked down on an open shell, falling away into the mud and revealing a glowing, golden seed within. Its eyes opened and it smiled as it spoke.

“You’ve finally chosen to release me! Thank you Papa!”